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Britain's Future Strength, the Health of Elementary School.Children, 1867-1907: a Study in Social Policy, Legislative Action and Government Growth

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Britain's Future Strength, the Health of Elementary School.Children, 1867-1907: a Study in Social Policy, Legislative Action and Government Growth BRITAIN'S FUTURE STRENGTH, THE HEALTH OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.CHILDREN, 1867-1907: A STUDY IN SOCIAL POLICY, LEGISLATIVE ACTION AND GOVERNMENT GROWTH by ANTHONY STUART FARSON B.A., University of Guelph A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA May, 1976 CY ANTHONY STUART FARSON In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of History The University of British Columbia 2075 Wesbrook Place Vancouver, Canada V6T 1W5 ABSTRACT The major objective of this thesis is to throw new light on the problem of "how" and "why" the function of the State within society changed dramatically during the first few years of the twentieth century By concentrating on the Liberal Government's measures of 1906 to 1907 to improve the health of working-class children this thesis hopes to show that the role of men and their beliefs played a far more important part in the development of the "British Welfare State" than has hitherto been credited. By illustrating how the social, political, and economic condi tions of the period 1870 to 1900 affected the consciousness of individ• uals and groups, it attempts to explain why there was a delay between the time when the extent of poverty became intolerable and the time when measures were enacted to relieve the problem. Three major themes intertwine throughout this thesis. These are the cause of government growth; the changing status of working-class children; and measures to improve the health of the nation. Chapter One discusses the social, physical, and psychological factors which affected the health of children before 1880, and illustrates the high esteem in which working-class parents held their children. Chapter Two shows how middle class Britain attempted to deal with the problem of child health in the period before the end of the nineteenth century. Chapter Three attempts to explain "how" and "why" the physical condition of the British working class became a question of major poli• tical significance for the first time. Specifically it describes the nineteenth century origins of the "National Efficiency" movement, the part played by the movement in concentrating public attention on the physical condition of the working class, and discusses the blue-print for social action formulated by the Inter-departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration. The last chapter describes how the Liberal Government of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman began the enactment of this social blue-print. Their first step was an Act which allowed local education authorities to feed needy school children free of charge. This was soon followed by another Act which allowed local education authorities to require the medical examination of all children attending public elementary schools. Together these Acts began a process of long-term social planning in Britain. iv CONTENTS Chapter Page Introduction 1 I. Child Life Amongst the Mid-Victorian Working Class: A Discussion of the Social, Psycho• logical, Economic and Physical Factors Affecting the Health of Children 12 II. Changes in Health Consciousness in Late Victorian Britain: An Assessment of the Role of "Experts" in Improving the Health of Children 47 III. The National Efficiency Movement and the Question of Physical Deterioration: Basic Ingredients in the Formation.of a National Blue-print for Social Action 99 IV. The Enactment of a Social Blue-print: The Medical Inspection and Feeding of School Children-—Initial Steps in Long-term Social Planning '. 165 Conclusion 205 Bibliography 213 V ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without the help of a number of people. I owe a special vote of thanks to Mrs. Anne Yandle and the staff of Special Col• lections. They always went out of their way to be help• ful. Likewise, I am heavily indebted to all those in Inter-Library Loan who tracked down my numerous requests. The University of British Columbia helped finance my studies with the gift of a fellowship for the academic year 1973-74. The Institute of Industrial Relations were very generous in providing me with a research grant for the academic years 1972-73 and 1973-74. I would like to thank Dr. J. Winter for his kind• ness, encouragement, and. the sound counsel he provided on a number of occasions. Finally, I would like to ex• press my appreciation to my supervisor, Dr. J. Norris, for his constructive criticism and patience in editing several drafts of this thesis. 1 INTRODUCTION Since the end of the Second World War major changes have taken place in the way history has been studied and written. Social history, once described as "history with the politics left out"''' has become domi• nant in the discipline. By comparison, older and better established approaches have been subordinated in the search for a broad and exciting 2 new desxgn—the history of society. These dramatic changes in the dis• cipline are themselves reflections of a vast social revolution which has swept through the industrialized world over the last hundred and fifty years. In Britain this revolution has been responsible for broad changes in social standards and social conditions. These in turn have initiated reforms of the law. Though these legislative changes have been of con• siderable interest to historians for many years, much confusion remains about their nature and direction. This confusion stems from two sources. First, the actual words used to describe the social transformation have tended to block the way 3 to a satisfactory explanation. Terms like "laissez-faire," "collectiv• ism," "state intervention," and particularly, the "welfare state," have become embroiled in contemporary political controversy. As a result, many have become "politically loaded" and have acquired inclusive as well as exclusive meanings. The second and more important source of confusion is to be dis• covered in the methods selected to analyse nineteenth century government growth and the emergence of the modern conception of the British State. Though it is now widely accepted that there is much more to the process 2 of social policy formation and legislative action, and hence government 5 growth, than the direct and inverse relationship seen by A. V. Dicey between law and public opinion, attempts so far to explain "how" and "why" the function of the State within British society has changed over the last hundred and fifty years have tended to concentrate more upon finite political events—the Acts of Parliament which embodied social reform—than the actual agents of social change.^ Where there have been attempts to deal extensively with causal factors, little attention has been given to weighting the factors involved in order of their impor- 7 tance. In addition, these efforts have devoted more time to such "concrete" changes as the physical conditions of life than to the impact 3 of these changes on the Victorian or Edwardian consciousness. In fact, with the exception of a few general articles historians have largely ignored the impact of changing social standards on social policy forma- 9 tion and legislative action. This appears to be a particularly serious error from two points of view. Calvin Woodward has pointed out that a strong case can be made for social standards being ultimately respon• sible for deciding whether or not, and if so when, a particular group or individual will find a specific form of behaviour or condition "intoler• able," as well as their determining the context in which social problems are cast, the types of solutions sought, and the forms of activities that particular individuals will demand of their national institutions. John H. Goldthorpe has claimed that an "action frame of reference"—anal• ysis in terms of the changing social standards of particular groups of individuals—can be particularly valuable in cases where time-lags exist 3 between the identification of an acute social problem and the provision of effective counter-measures.^ As a result, it appears that existing methods of analysis have not only misrepresented and subordinated the place of men and their beliefs in historical analysis to a secondary level, but have been responsible for oversimplifying many of the social, legislative, and administrative changes which occurred during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This oversimplification has lent a false connotation of "inevitability" to the process of social change. In addition, it has led to the assumption that social legislation occurred according to some sort of natural rhythm or as the result of accidents of history, and consequently, that there were no time-lags or discontinu• ities in the historical process between the moment when a certain social phenomenon was identified as being "intolerable" and the time when the British Government acted to improve the situation. In consequence, existing methods of analysing social change have implicitly ruled out the possibility of any long-term notion of social planning on the part of late-Victorian politicians and administrators. This thesis is concerned with the changing function of the British State during the first decade of the twentieth century and is based on the assumption that recent analyses of nineteenth-century government growth and the "origins of the British Welfare State" represent oversimpli• fications on at least four grounds.
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